


Capitulate

by singing_to_shipwreck (shocked_into_shame)



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst, I'm so sorry, Introspection, M/M, Nandor-centric, No happy endings, a literal angst fest, probably very out of character, there is nothing happy or funny about this fic, this is so fucking dramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24122287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shocked_into_shame/pseuds/singing_to_shipwreck
Summary: ca·pit·u·late/kəˈpiCHəˌlāt/verbcease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; surrender.An exploration of Nandor's feelings for Guillermo and his feelings for himself.
Relationships: Guillermo/Nandor the Relentless (What We Do in the Shadows TV)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	Capitulate

**Author's Note:**

> You know how basically all of my fics are fluffy, silly little things? 
> 
> Yeah. This isn't one of those. 
> 
> This started off as just an idea to play around with Nandor's POV, and I expected to maybe write 500-1000 words about his origins and his thoughts. It ended up being this. This is not happy. I'm warning you now. This is also probably very out of character. Oops.
> 
> There is the hint of a spoiler in here, as a plot point is based on a promo video.
> 
> Please enjoy despite it all.
> 
> Edit to add: this was written before On The Run and all subsequent episodes, so it deviates from canon.

Falling in love came slowly, but the realization hit Nandor in one swift blow. 

He supposes that he was in love for much longer than he's been aware of it. Certainly for months, and very probably for years. It isn’t as though he has much practice with the emotion. 

Sure, he's loved. He's felt love in the last 700 years since he was a married human. He felt love for his animals. He feels love for Nadja and Laszlo and even sometimes Colin, in a way. He feels love for his children and generations and generations of grandchildren that he’s never known. 

There had been a fleeting fancy or two over the years. Nothing beyond a quick rendezvous, however. Nothing _meaningful._

How was he supposed to know that the clenching, wringing ache he felt in his chest every time he so much as thought about Guillermo was love? How was he supposed to figure that out when he had no frame of reference for such a feeling? It doesn’t compare to the romantic love he felt for his wives. It doesn’t compare to anything he’s ever felt before. 

He is supposed to be relentless. He is supposed to be a cold, unfeeling warrior, who doesn’t have the capacity for love or pity or fear. That’s what he was raised to be by his parents and by his commanders. He was destined to be _great_ and powerful and ferocious from the start. He was born to kill, planted as a seed in his mother’s womb and birthed into a world that would be his for the taking. 

And when he was dying on the battlefield, having suffered a terrible loss of his men, his horse, and his dignity, he wondered what it was all for, if not this. He had closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fingers pressed closely against the mortal wound on his abdomen. He was born to kill, and he had done exactly that. He had known the rush of power and the sickening guilt that came with the slaughter. But now he was free from it. He closed his eyes and prepared for reckoning that would come alongside the end. 

But then his body was dragged through the mud by a horrible, snarling creature, something that he could not have imagined even in his worst nightmares. He kept waiting to take that final breath. He kept waiting for the peace that only death could bring. He kept waiting for the reckoning, and it never came. Instead, he wandered home in a daze with a now healing mortal wound. No horse or fellow man to accompany him, just a belly full of a viscous, terrible substance and visions of that growling beast walking alongside him in his odyssey home. 

Becoming a vampire had only solidified his destiny. He was born to kill, and now he _needed_ to kill. The hunt was not just for sport but for sustenance. After the change, he was truly invincible. He felt all-at-once powerful and powerless. Powerful to fulfill his destiny, and powerless to be anything other than a monster. 

And now, standing in the bottom of a well, waiting for the sun to rise and kill him along with two beings he has grown to care for, he isn’t ready. He isn’t ready to meet his maker. Not now, not now that he knows of the light inside him. Now that he knows that he is capable of the most intense, pure love, he wants nothing more than to live. 

He hadn’t known before. He knew he could love, but it always came with a condition. He could love, but he could never know selfless love. He would always be a monster first, and a man second. 

When Guillermo was called in as a witness to the trial and had taken the blame for killing the Baron, Nandor felt like he might be sick all over their floor. 

He had treated Guillermo as a servant and nothing more. He had been too cowardly to treat him as anything more. Guillermo had been loyal to him from the start, and was willing to lie about something as grave as murder for him.

Guillermo would lose his life for it, for _him_. This vulnerable, lowly human would lay down his existence to protect him.

Nadja and Laszlo seemed to be on board. He could be quiet and let it happen. He could find another familiar. 

He looked at the back of Guillermo’s head, the mess of brown curls. His eyes raked the round slopes of Guillermo’s shoulders, encased in a navy jacket. The fluttering of his heart was audible to Nandor’s enhanced ears.

It came to him then, roared over him like the mightiest swells in the Gulf of Basra. He loved this vulnerable, lowly man. He was in love with him, a love rumbling in his chest. Guillermo was unlike anyone he had ever met before. He was so _good_ , so pure, and he knew Nandor. He knew him like no one else had ever known him. 

The others thought he was stupid. They had no time for his moments of confusion, had no patience for his eccentricities. But Guillermo was a pillar of forbearance. Nandor was vicious and nasty, but Guillermo was steadfast. He didn’t patronize him. Guillermo admired him, even though he had grown soft around the middle and was no longer the warrior he once was. Nandor felt himself with Guillermo. He trusted him. He loved him. 

He would die for him without a second thought. That revelation was dizzying. He had never been willing to give his life for another before, not even for those closest to him. “No! I cannot abide by this!” he blurted, drinking in the gentle, proud smile that Guillermo sent him in reply. 

He closes his eyes tight, now, waiting for the burn of the sun on his skin. He is distantly aware of Nadja calling out the name of a man he doesn’t recognize, and Guillermo’s name burns on his tongue. Even now, he is a coward, too afraid to admit the blossoming feeling in his chest. He was too ashamed to be Guillermo’s friend, and now he is too ashamed to admit his love, even in the very end. It’s pathetic. 

Once again, death doesn’t come. 

He vows to himself then that he will treat Guillermo more fairly. He might not yet be worthy of Guillermo’s love or his affection, and he may never know him in a romantic sense. But he will be better. He’s been given the chance to be better, and so he shall be. 

* * *

He is not better. Months and months pass, and if anything, he is worse. Nastier. Where he could express a modicum of affection before, he now feels wrong every time he tries to initiate so much as the smallest physical gesture. Shame coils deep within him, and he feels now as though ignominy has weaved its way into his identity. Nandor the Relentless. Nandor the Milksop. 

He is ashamed for falling in love with a human, and he is ashamed for lacking the bravery to admit it. 

Guillermo is pulling away. He senses it the night of Madeline’s funeral. He’s particularly unpleasant that evening, the guilt of killing his granddaughter gnawing at him. He wants so badly to reach for Guillermo for comfort, and he can’t. He won’t let himself. Instead, he lashes out, and the coldness in Guillermo’s eyes is startling. Guillermo’s patience is withering. It’s his fault. 

It continues to wither. Guillermo’s allegiance fades into dust, and Nandor watches it happen in silence.

He knows that his familiar is lying to him. He might not be wise enough to know what it is that he’s lying about, but he knows that he’s lying.

When he opens the house to a curse, all he can do is wish that Guillermo were there alongside him. _Guillermo would know what to do_ , he thinks. Guillermo would know how to fix this. Guillermo is not here. He is running errands, he says, but Nandor knows that he is pulling away from him. He is not here in their home tonight, and it’s Nandor’s fault. If he had been better to Guillermo, he might be here.

Nandor is terrified that night, the curse solidifying his mortality and his vulnerability. There have been whispers of vampire killers. Nandor knows he very well may die without even admitting aloud the ferocity of the love he feels for Guillermo.

When Guillermo shows up to the house with what is clearly blood all over his shirt, he feels his grip on him begin to slip even further. Something is going on, and Guillermo is hiding it from him.

Guillermo tries to embrace him in the entryway, and the thought of it makes him weak in the knees. He wants to allow it, but he can already anticipate the sneers on Nadja and Laszlo’s faces. He pushes Guillermo away.

He is afraid.

He wants Guillermo to be _his_ again.

He craves his patience and his kindness and his loyalty. He craves his unwavering fidelity. It’s slipping through his fingers by the second, and it’s of his own doing.

He admits his fear to Guillermo and revels in the kindness he is shown. He wants to reach for Guillermo’s hand, wants to bring the back of it close to his face and lay delicate, worshipful kisses in the warm skin there. He wants to wrap his arms around the softness of Guillermo’s body and never let go. He wants to bury his face in the plush expanse of Guillermo’s chest and listen to the steady, comforting thrum of his heart.

He reaches for the hand of the man he loves.

There is blood on his knuckle. Guillermo is protecting him, now, but Guillermo is lying to him. Nandor can’t grant himself the privilege of touching Guillermo’s skin, not when there is so much unsaid that hangs between them.

When it all finally comes to a head, he is blindsided. When two wooden stakes are pointed at his chest, two stakes held in the grasp of the two tiny hands he adores so much, he feels the slap of betrayal, so stinging and unlike any other feeling he’s felt that he almost tells Guillermo to just get on with it and end him already.

He is crushed by the weight of this new knowledge, that his sweet Guillermo has his own destiny to fulfill, and that destiny is to kill monsters like Nandor.

Even as he watches Guillermo drop the stakes, he is unable to shake the betrayal. Guillermo cries, fat wells of moisture beading up in his brown eyes and dripping down his cheeks, fogging up his glasses. He begs for forgiveness. He promises his fidelity. Nandor wants so badly to reach out and embrace him, to forgive him.

Nandor knows what it means to have a destiny. He was born to kill, and he can never escape that. The trajectory of his life and his undead existence have proven that destiny is not to be avoided.

Guillermo, too, was born to kill. It wouldn’t be fair of Nandor to expect anything else from him.

“Get out,” he grits. He watches Guillermo’s face fall and clenches his fists. “I do not want you here any longer. You are relieved of your duties as my familiar,” he lies, the words bitter against his tongue.

He can’t tear his eyes from Guillermo’s face as he watches devastation become replaced by an icy coldness that looks so foreign on his round visage. Guillermo could kill him now. It wouldn’t make any difference.

“I was loyal to you,” Guillermo spits. “I never would have hurt you. I did so much for you, and you don’t give a shit about me.” His face tightens and his shoulders are shaking. “You don’t even know. You don’t even know the half of how I… How I…” Guillermo hesitates. “I would do anything for you, and you don’t give a shit,” he reiterates, voice dropping to a whisper.

Nandor wants to scream. He wants to tell him of the vast expanse of the feelings he has for him, all of the wants and desires that he feels gnawing at him every moment of every day. He wants to kneel and kiss Guillermo’s feet, beg for forgiveness for being such a pitiful, imprudent, weak, and cowardly creature. He wants to be courageous enough to believe Guillermo and to offer forgiveness in return.

Instead, he snarls and asks, “So why are you still here if I don’t give a shit about you, Guillermo?”

The slam of the front door rings in his ears for what feels like hours.

* * *

It has been 26 days and 7 hours since Guillermo left, and Nandor is not brooding. No, that would imply some level of action on his part, some level of self-reflection or pain.

What he has been doing is absolutely nothing. He gets out of his coffin each night, dresses himself in whatever is lying around his room. He feeds on whatever humans Nadja and Laszlo bring to him. He sits on many chairs in many corners of the house, and he revels in nothingness. Total and complete apathy. If allowed to feel so much as one twinge of pain at Guillermo’s absence, he would fall apart at the seams, he thinks.

He is fucking Nandor the Relentless. He has slaughtered thousands upon thousands of humans. He has crushed whole civilizations in his fists as easily as a child might crush an insect. He is an immortal warrior, destined to inflict cruelty and damage on all that he meets for all of eternity.

He cannot let a human man be his unraveling. It would be entirely too wretched.

Nadja is shouting at him, and he only blinks at her, lip curling in disgust. The cameras are fixed on them. They have documented his pitiful state from start to finish. He has a vision of murdering the entire crew, starting with the boom mic operator and ending with Camera 2. He imagines what Guillermo would think about that, and feels something akin to a sob welling in his throat.

“This is enough, Nandor!” she screeches, her hands waving about. Laszlo is standing behind her, nodding along sadly. “You cannot continue to sit here and to rot in this house. Not even Colin Robinson can stand to be around you anymore! You cannot mope about the house just because Gizmo has left us!”

Nandor hisses at the name. Nadja huffs in frustration, crossing her arms and pacing about the room. Laszlo makes a face but then sits across from Nandor. “Love surprises us sometimes, chap.”

Nandor’s face burns with the feeling of being seen. Nadja and Laszlo can see him, he realizes, then. “It’s not conventional, falling in love with a familiar. It isn’t something that’s done. But Guillermo is a good man, indeed, and you could certainly do worse for yourself.”

“Guillermo is a vampire killer,” he grits, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice.

“We know this, you big idiot!” Nadja hisses. “The camera people told us this when he left. He never would have hurt you, and I know that deep down in that stupid body of yours you know that!” She shakes her head, baring her teeth. “I am standing up for a fucking vampire killer, Nandor! Laszlo and I are alright with it, and here you are sitting on our sofa like a pathetic, moldy loaf of bread. Do something about this!”

He has permission, now. He has permission from the closest thing he has to family. He is seen by them, and he has been granted their consent.

That night, he wanders out of the house for the first time in nearly a month, and the cold air is a shock to his system as he walks down the street. He is walking aimlessly, trying very hard not to think. Usually, that should come as second-nature, he thinks to himself, festering in the bitter twinge of self-deprecation. Nadja had said it herself, tonight and countless other times. He is a big idiot.

His wandering is proving to be less aimless than he anticipated, as he finds himself at what he knows is Guillermo’s childhood home. It’s a longshot as to whether or not he is here, but as he gazes at the house, he knows there is a chance that Guillermo is in there. He stands on the sidewalk, staring at the wooden structure, considering that all that separates himself and Guillermo is this house and the weight of his own indecision.

A light flickers on inside the house and curtains part. Guillermo is there at the window, looking out at the street. Nandor knows he sees him. Hope is blossoming on Guillermo’s face, and Nandor dares to allow hope to blossom in his own chest.

But he is Nandor the Relentless. He is an unfeeling, unwavering beast, and Guillermo is a strong, _beautiful_ hunter of beasts.

He gives the smallest tilt of his head, a hint of a nod in Guillermo’s direction before he turns and continues to walk along the street, away from the man who was placed on this earth to be his undoing.


End file.
